History[edit]

Under the Iraqi constitution of 1925, Iraq was a constitutional monarchy, with a bicameral legislature consisting of an elected House of Representatives and an appointed Senate. The lower house was elected every four years by manhood suffrage (women did not vote). The first Parliament met in 1925. Ten general elections were held before the overthrow of the monarchy in 1958. The electoral system, however, was manipulated by the King and his advisors, who were SunniMuslims, to ensure that the Shi'a majority were prevented from taking power.

Between 1958 and 2003 Iraq was ruled by a series of military governments, all dominated by Iraqi Arabs, particularly after the emergence of the Ba'ath Party in the early 1960s. Under the regime of Saddam Hussein, who came to power in 1979, Kurds were persecuted. Furthermore, Arabs who were non-Ba'athist or non-Arab inclined (most notably those of Shi'ite faith) were also persecuted. Saddam's rule was largely run by Arabs from Tikrit (a mainly Sunni area), his home region. On October 16, 2002, after a well-publicized show election, Iraqi officials declared that Saddam had been re-elected to another seven-year term as President by a 100% unanimous vote of all 11,445,638 eligible Iraqis, eclipsing the 99.96% received in 1995. Outside governments dismissed the vote as lacking credibility.

Post-2003 invasion[edit]

The multinational force's liberation of Iraq in 2003 overthrew Saddam's government and installed an interim administration in which all of Iraq's population was represented.

An initial Iraqi attempt at holding local elections was canceled by Paul Bremer.[1]

This government held elections on January 30, 2005 to begin the process of writing a constitution. International groups and the formerly excluded factions claimed that the January 2005 elections were the first free elections in Iraq's history, with a fair representation of all groups. This is in stark contrast to previous elections, including those under the Constitutional Monarchy decades earlier. Opponents of the occupation, such as the various insurgent groups, claimed the elections were not free and fair, citing flaws in the process. The UN adviser to Iraq's election commission Craig Jenness said the complaints were not significant; "I don't see anything that would necessitate a rerun...There were nearly 7,000 candidates standing in this election and only 275 seats, so you're always going to have winners and losers and it's normal that the losers won't always be happy about it."[2][3]

First: The electoral term of the Council of Representatives shall be four calendar years, starting with its first session and ending with the conclusion of the fourth year.

Second: The new Council of Representatives shall be elected forty-five days before the conclusion of the preceding electoral term. The previous election had been on 15 December 2005.

The opening session of the Council of Representatives had been 16 March 2006 (the swearing in session) and the first substantive session of the Council of Representatives was then held on 22 April 2006. The Court was of the opinion that the swearing in session on 16 March 2006 was the "first session" as required by Article 56(First). It therefore followed that the conclusion of the 4th year would be on 15 March 2010 and that the election should be 45 days prior to 15 March 2010, i.e. 30 January 2010. The court decided that the Calendar year referred to was the 365 day Gregorian year (and not for example the 360 day Hijri year).